AUGUSTA, Ga. — Strip away the hours that elapsed between the crime and punishment, the conflicts of interest, tortured logic and technicalities, and this much is clear: Tiger Woods behaved badly.

The green jackets in charge of the Masters behaved worse.

Hindsight isn't always 20-20. At Augusta National, it turned out to be two strokes.

On Friday, Woods was tied for the lead at 5-under. He threw a lob wedge into the 15th green for his third shot. It hit the flagstick and ricocheted into the pond.

With three options from where to play his next shot, Woods elected to play from the original spot. Under Rule 26-1, he had to drop a ball "as nearly as possible at the (original) spot." Intentionally or not — it doesn't matter — Woods violated it by dropping the ball 2 yards behind the original spot, because that distance better fit his plans for the next shot. He hit that close enough for a tap-in bogey 6.

A viewer called into Augusta National to point out the violation.

(Why is golf the only sport that provides a "Crime Stoppers" call-in service? With today's technology you could prove holding along the line on every play of every NFL game.)

Masters officials reviewed the video of Woods' shot sequence as he played No. 18. They saw no violation, didn't consult Woods, and he signed an incorrect scorecard for 71.

After his round, Woods said during an ESPN interview, "I went back to where I played it from, but went two yards further back and I tried to take two yards off the shot of what I felt I hit."

They called Woods on Saturday morning and reviewed video of the shot with him. He acknowledged dropping the ball two yards behind where he should have, though Woods would say later on Twitter: "I took a drop that I thought was correct and in accordance with the rules."

See TIGER, Page 7C

(No surprise there. At the 1999 Phoenix Open, Woods' tee shot came to rest behind a boulder on No. 13, and he convinced officials it was a "loose impediment." In no time, a team of spectators was enlisted to move the boulder, clearing the path for his approach shot and an eventual birdie. So when Woods says he would "move heaven and earth" to win, believe it.)

But because of Rule 33-7, which states, in part: "A penalty of disqualification may in exceptional individual cases be waived, modified or imposed if the committee considers such action warranted," Masters officials fell on their sword. They waived the penalty of disqualification for signing an incorrect scorecard and instead assessed a two-stroke penalty.

Fred Ridley, chairman of the competition committees, justified the decision by effectively saying "our bad," claiming they never considered booting Woods because the club had initially cleared him of wrongdoing before he signed his card.

Woods teed off at 1:45 p.m. Saturday to polite applause and nary a boo.

Nantz opened the CBS broadcast at 3 p.m., essentially saying that now that the controversy has been explained, all is right with Augusta and golf.

Except it's not.

You'd have to be the viewer who made that first call to care about — let alone follow — all the twists and turns. All you really need to know is that Woods could have handed back the get-out-of-jail-almost-for-free card that Masters officials put on the table, and picked up more goodwill than Betty White.

But these days, the only thing worse than being a loser is a sap, and Woods was completely within his rights to take advantage of every break that goes his way. He finished off an even-par 70 round late Saturday afternoon and said afterward, "If it was done a year or two ago, whatever, I wouldn't have the opportunity to play. But the rules have changed, and under the rules of golf, I was able to play."

Which brings us back to the green jackets.

Anyone have the feeling that if the golfer under investigation was, say, Vijay Singh, the first official review of the drop would have gone differently? Just a day earlier, saying "rules are rules," those same officials slapped 14-year-old Chinese sensation Guan Tianlang with a slow-play penalty, even though there was no evidence that his indecisiveness over which club to hit was actually slowing down play.

But their ruling in Woods' case unraveled so quickly that if it had been a thread on one of their green jackets, that same guy would be walking around in shirt sleeves. Then maybe we'd see some more transparency around the joint.

"Hindsight is 20/20," began a question to Ridley, "but do you wish now that you had spoken to Tiger so that you would have been absolutely clear on what did or did not happen?"

"There's not a day that goes by that there are not some things I wish I would have done differently," he said.

Since they're in such a generous mood, maybe this current group of officials would go back and right one of the game's — and the club's — most egregious mistakes.

Forty-five years ago, Roberto de Vicenzo signed an incorrect scorecard on the final day — playing partner Tommy Aaron wrongly entered a 4 instead of 3 at the 17th hole — and under the rules, the higher score stood. As a result, de Vicenzo wound up a shot behind winner Bob Goalby instead of meeting him in an 18-hole playoff the next day.

He took full blame and what de Vicenzo said afterward — "What a stupid I am!" — has echoed through the decades for its poignancy.

Considering the way things have gone for the last two days, that's a lot more accurate than "A Tradition Like No Other."

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